CHAPTER ONE
BEATRICERESISTEDTHEinstinct to fight her way through the layers of sleep, instead easing her body closer to the warmth of the hard male contours she was lying… Male… The shocked acknowledgement hit at the same moment a distant clatter was joined by the melodic voice of her sister, who had clearly recovered from her migraine of the previous night and was singing something catchy and irritating downstairs.
One of the major differences between them, beyond the fact her sibling was not blonde, did not have blue eyes and was frequently referred to as petite and delicate, was that Maya was a morning person who woke with a smile on her face and a spring in her step. She could also hold a tune, and finally Maya would never have woken up beside a man who had walked into a bar alone and walked out minutes later not alone!
A protective hand went to Beatrice’s face before she conquered her sense of dread and opened her eyes, widening her fingers fanlike to peer through them.
Maybe it was all a bad dream—with some very good parts.
It wasn’t a dream!
Connecting with the pair of dark polished ebony eyes framed by lashes too thick and curling for any man, containing a sardonic gleam that stared right back at her, she loosed a low moan, scrunched her own eyes tight and twisted away.
The reaction of the owner of the eyes and the body, which even fully clothed had had every woman in the bar regarding her with envy as she had left with him, prevented her rolling into a foetal bundle of denial.
In her head she had stiffened in reaction to the heavy arm thrown casually across her ribcage; in reality her body softened and the determination to put some distance between them was overwhelmed by a fresh surge of toe-tingling heat, as a voice as deep and sinfully seductive as the warm breath against her earlobe sent sharp tingles outwards from the core of liquid warmth low in her belly.
‘What’s the hurry?’
Eyes closed, she loosed a quivering sigh and then moaned as he brought his hard body suggestively up against the curve of hers, providing enough reasons not to go anywhere as her resistance to the heavy throb of desire that robbed her limbs of strength dissolved utterly.
For several long languid moments she allowed herself to enjoy the feel of strong, sensitive hands and clever fingers moving up her ribcage, tracing a line down her belly, causing her to suck in a shocked, excited breath, before lifting to cup the weight of one breast, his thumb rubbing across the tight, aroused peak.
‘Stop it?’
Now where did that question mark come from? she wondered, feeling a stab of frustration when he did just that, pulling his hand away. An action that caused her to squirm backwards a little and catch the thumb of the hand that came to rest on the curve of her jaw between her teeth.
‘Play nice, Bea.’
Before she could react to the husky remonstrance, she found herself flat on her back. It wasn’t his superior strength that kept her breathless there—she could have easily slid from underneath him. There was air between their bodies as, hands braced flat on the pillow either side of her face, knees either side of her hips, his body curved above her.
She was pinned there as much by the hungry ache inside her as his predatory bold dark stare fastened onto her face, lingering on her lips that still felt swollen from the kisses that had continued last night, even as they had torn each other’s clothes off as they had stumbled across the room to the bed.
Her eyes darkened at the memories of the passionate coupling. The stress of discovering him beside her was pushed to the fringes of her mind as she stared back. His face was really a total miracle. Perfect was too mild a word to describe the sculpted arrangement of his perfect bone structure, the deep golden tone of his skin, dusted on his hollow cheeks and square lower jaw by a shadow of dark sexy stubble, the sensuality of his mouth, the firm upper lip counteracted by the full sensual lower.
She blinked and cleared her throat. ‘I don’t want to play.’ She husked the words out past the ache in her throat. It was true there was nothing light or playful about the ache. It was on a par with the need, the craving for oxygen as she opened her eyes and managed to disconnect from his stare, but only escaped as far as his mouth, which did an equal amount of damage to her nervous system.
The sharply etched angle of his carved cheekbones, the hawkish dominance of his nose blurred as his head lowered. The first kiss was a warm, tormenting whisper across her parted lips, drawing a fractured moan from her throat. The second, still soft on the side of her mouth, drew her body up into an arch as she tried to deepen the pressure. The ones that followed increased the torment until, unable to bear it any longer, she reached up, her fingers sinking deep into the thick dark hair, her hands locking on the back of his head as she dragged his face downwards, glimpsing the glitter in his dark eyes, before she pressed her mouth to his and closed her eyes.
Restraint gone, they kissed with a wild hunger, and they fell back. Warm bodies sinuously twisting to deepen the contact, driven by a passion that drove every other thought from Beatrice’s head.
‘Bea, are you coming down or shall I bring your coffee up?’
Beatrice stiffened as she was jarringly jolted back to reality. Eyes scrunched, a moan of self-recrimination locked in her throat, as without a word she rolled away from the warm body she was pressed against.
‘Weak…stupid…weak…stupid!’ she mumbled, beating herself up verbally as she swung her long legs over the side of the bed and, with a sinuous, graceful swoop, grabbed a sheet that had at some point fallen on the floor. She didn’t stop until she reached the far corner of the room, where she stood, shoulder blades pressed to the wall, holding the sheet against her body. It was an inadequate shield but better than nothing.
She glanced nervously at the door; a nightmare scenario played in her head of the door opening and Maya appearing.
‘I’ll be down just now!’ she yelled. ‘You need to go!’ she whispered, transferring her agonised glance to the man lying in her bed.
He looked in no hurry to go anywhere any time soon as he rolled onto his back, tucking one hand behind his head, causing the light sheet that lay across his narrow hips to slide another inch lower. He was totally at ease with his naked state but she was not. He was a living, breathing sculpture of perfectly formed muscles and warm olive-toned skin—just looking at him made things shift deep inside her.
The mockery in his expression was not quite in tune with the dark frustration in his heavy-lidded eyes as his glance came to rest on the swell of her full breasts above the sheet she held clutched against herself.
As he watched her struggles to control the white swathe, he visualised the slim curves beneath the tented fabric. The smooth, warm scented skin, the silk touch of her long legs as they wrapped around him. The thousand razor cuts of desire that came with the memory darkened his eyes to midnight.
‘That is not what I need, cara.’